Letters: Marine's orders: Protect our beaches

As a young Marine and a native of Pensacola serving my country, I had the opportunity to travel the world and see first-hand the beaches and oceans of various places — both domestic and international sea shores. I am happy to report that Pensacola and the surrounding beaches, in my opinion, are some of best in the world.

Now, as a former Marine and many years wiser, I realize that the condition of our area beaches and water ways do not stay beautiful by themselves. It requires teamwork, a joint effort between our elected officials, our scientists, service organizations and us (the general public).

A prime example of this type of teamwork is the work that is being done along the downtown Pensacola Bay shoreline called "Project Green Shores." It is a habitat restoration project of our estuaries as well as a means of protecting our shores from erosion by replanting sea grass.

I would ask that we all take a little more time to clean up and protect the Gulf Coast's number one asset — our beaches.

– Alonzo Slade

Pensacola

Flood fighting

My name is Heather Jackson, and I am a student at the University of West Florida. I hope to share some ideas that will better our community.

After the recent flooding lives, vehicles, homes and businesses were ruined, I have been thinking of ways to better cope with the water levels since there is not an easy way to change the landscape of Pensacola itself.

Perhaps the city could add larger storm drains to the current ones found in street curbs and install drains in neighborhood ditches, as well. And perhaps there could also be a way to add drains in parking lots that are more prone to flooding.

For example, there were photos in the newspaper and on websites of cars nearly submerged in local shopping mall parking lots.